Dartmouth woman is trying to revive a local Transition Culture movement

Wednesday

Aug 28, 2013 at 10:55 AM

DARTMOUTH — Picture a town where the food consumed is locally grown, not shipped in from God-knows-where. Envision a community meeting its energy needs... getting the power to heat its homes and run its machinery locally, and not being reliant on the vagaries of overseas politics.

JASON PROTAMI

DARTMOUTH — Picture a town where the food consumed is locally grown, not shipped in from God-knows-where. Envision a community meeting its energy needs... getting the power to heat its homes and run its machinery locally, and not being reliant on the vagaries of overseas politics.

Imagine a group taking the initiative for these things instead of relying on government to get them done; where the visible change is simply an outward manifestation of the change within.

This is all part of the vision of the Transition Culture, and Rita Couto of Dartmouth wants to see it happen here.

Growing up near an oil refinery in an under-served community in Brazil like Mrs. Couto did can affect a person's life profoundly, she suggested.

Often the effects are negative and physical — "I saw a lot of people with respiratory illnesses," Mrs. Couto remembers. But oftentimes, such experiences leave a person wanting change.

Mrs. Couto first learned about the Transition Culture a couple of years ago while taking classes at UMass Dartmouth, and the movement struck a chord with her, as one of its primary goals is to end dependence on fossil fuels.

"There is a dark side to oil people don't see," but she has, she suggested, recalling from her youth the evacuation drills that her neighborhood routinely underwent.

But Transition Culture is more than just encouraging renewable energy — it's a call for a renewable lifestyle based on the understanding that individual communities have their own unique issues and subsequently their own solutions to those problems.

First founded by Rob Hopkins in England in 2006, it looks to create a simpler, more local-centric culture that finds opportunities to respond in a positive way to the problems facing the world. As Mrs. Couto puts it, "if we wait around for the governments to solve our problems, then it'll be too late."

So what does Dartmouth need? "We've got a lot of solar, and that's good," she said, "but I'd like to see more bike paths and sidewalks to make alternate transportation easier." She would like to see less fast-food restaurants and franchise stores, preferring locally owned and operated institutions.

Some towns in England, where the idea has taken off, have largely taken their communities off the grid, operating their own collective bakeries and breweries; one town has even developed its own local currency, she noted.

So far, it's been an uphill battle here, though. "We had a good group of people a couple of years ago... farmers, educators, and other individuals," she said, but the movement lost steam. The low point came last year, when she held a meeting at Southworth Library which no one attended.

There's still a core group involved in the local effort, but to be successful, the numbers have to grow. "I can't do it all by myself," she said. "No one person can." Or should, for that matter; the goal of Transition Culture is active community involvement.

Never one to give up or lose sight of her vision, Mrs. Couto keeps the passion, planning another meeting for early next year. "Spring is a good time for beginnings," she suggests optimistically, but adding pragmatically, "this time of year is busy for the farmers."

Always the realist, she understands that education is crucial to the movement's success. "For a lot of people, climate change is a second-tier issue," she said. "People may be aware of climate change, but they're not necessarily conscious of it; they're busy working and living their lives."

However, she also knows that "by the time people start to see the real effects of climate change, it'll be too late,"

A big-tent movement with an acting local focus, Mrs. Couto sees room for all under the Transition Culture umbrella — CSA members, participants in time-exchange programs where people exchange labor and services instead of money, and the elderly and impoverished.

The elderly can teach us a lot, she said, being the only people who remember living without fossil fuels. Wanting to tap their knowledge, she envisions them teaching classes on food production and preservation, animal husbandry, cloth making and myriad other skills our modern culture has relegated to big business.

Fluent in both Portuguese and Spanish, she also seeks help from the Latino community, though many are on the bottom end of the socio-economic scale. "It's in those communities where they have really learned to help each other, because they've had to" and not waiting for someone else to help, she said, which is what Transition Culture is all about.

There's even an internal, spiritual side to the movement, she explained, countering the nihilism some members experience when feeling overwhelmed by the problems they see in our future.

She doesn't like to dwell on the negatives, however, always stressing the positive aspect of positive change.

"Even if the worst doesn't happen, we're still going to be a happier community," she believes. "We could all be happier and healthier if we were all better connected, something we've lost in our modern society," she said.

Anyone interested in learning more about the local Transition Culture movement can contact Rita Couto by e-mail to couto.rita@gmail.com or calling her at (347) 901-0317.

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